The Social Marketing Construct

Via Chris Carfi comes this brilliant little presentation from John Gatrell and Sheryl Altschuler on the evolution of brands in the age of customer communities. For many of you, this deck is going to look and pretty familiar – how many times do we have to go over this? – but most corporate executives AND advertising agency AEs still haven’t, so I guess we’ll have to keep rolling this up over and over again until the old school “marketing monologue” mentality finally gets kicked to the curb for good.

Now don’t get me wrong: I am not saying that messaging is dead. Classic marketing tools like advertising, PR, sponsorships, special events and promotions shouldn’t go away. It’s just that they’re only part of the picture now instead of being THE picture. Unfortunately, many companies still look at their “marketing” tactics through a 25-year old lens – which is essentially a 1983 lens. Even those among us who are only ten years behind in their thinking are stuck in 1998. Scary.

There is more to reaching customers and growing your breadth than throwing marketing copy, pretty pictures and special promotions at your “market” and then expecting folks to love you for it. Especially not in this economy.

To help your CMO, CEO, client or team find their way to 2008, click on the big yellow box above. Feel free to forward it to everyone and anyone who plays even the most remote customer engagement role in your organization. This is knowledge worth spreading around.